


Take Me Out, Toss Me Aside

by xbedhead



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Banter, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Recovery, post-shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbedhead/pseuds/xbedhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh is home from the hospital and Donna's taking care of him for a few days. Nothing's on TV, all the books are read and he can't get the hang of latch hook. The only thing left for them to do, is talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I needed Donna to know what happened to Joanie and this seemed like a plausible situation for her to find out.
> 
> This is unbeta'd and the second part is almost finished, just need to find a way to string things together. Any comments or criticisms are welcome!

“Of course it’s trash today. Of _course_ it is!”

She rounds the corner from the kitchen to his bedroom in time to see him launch his remote across the room. Thankfully, it lands in a pile of laundry she’s yet to get to instead of shattering into no less than five pieces that she’d undoubtedly have had to crawl around on her hands and knees to collect.

“I hope you don’t engage in this kind of behavior when I’m not around. Shouting at inanimate objects and taking out your frustration on hapless electronics.”

He kicks a little at the sheets tangled around his ankles, a mask of frustration on his face. “There’s nothing on television. I gotta find her something else to report on,” he mumbles.

She takes a bite from the bowl she’s carried in from the kitchen. “It’s Friday, Josh, and, sorry, but all is well in the world at the moment. Maybe CJ can conjure up some mass chaos in time for her twelve o’clock briefing,” she quips, taking a seat in the overstuffed armchair near the headboard. The thing weighed a ton and she may have just given herself a hernia scooting it in from the living room when Josh was discharged yesterday.

He allows himself to wallow for a moment when the clink of her spoon against the ceramic gathers his attention. “Whaddya got?” he asks, lifting his head from the pillow with only a slight grimace.

She proffers the bowl in his general direction. “Do you want some? I got some cereal at the grocery – you had absolutely no breakfast foods.”

He props himself up on his elbows and leans toward her at an awkward angle. “What is that?”

“Cap’n Crunch.”

“What are you, _five_?”

She pulls a face and cocks her head to one side, spoon suspended in the air. “Says the grown man who just hurled his remote across the room because nothing on TV suited him.”

He flops back into his pillows and sighs, “I have a disability.”

Another bite. “Yeah. A chronic lack of restraint.”

“It’s not fun to make fun of the disabled.”

He sounds distant, bored – which he is at the moment and she feels a small swell of pity for him. He’d been stuck in a bed for the better part of ten weeks, relegated only to short, assisted walks around the hospital floor and “limited activities” like watching television, reading or her spectacularly failed attempt at teaching him how to do latch hook. “Well, what about your books?” she offers, placing her bowl on the nightstand and moving toward the stack she’d placed on his dresser.

“Read ‘em.”

She stops, half-bent and reaching, and looks over her shoulder at him. “ _All_ of them?”

“Yeah, I penciled in some light reading between my ten AM and three PM _naps_.”

He looks annoyed with her, himself…the world maybe.

“I’ll get you some more tomorrow.”

They sit in silence, both pairs of eyes glued to the muted White House Live on the television he had mounted in the corner above his dresser. CJ had finished her brief ten minutes ago and the podium in the press room stood empty, waiting for the noon meeting in which she could talk about such hot-topic items like the DC public school system lunch menus and the new rose bushes that had been planted on the south lawn.

“I should read the string theory one again, really try to wrap my head around it. I was too doped up the first time and – ”

“Josh, I really, _really_ can’t take anymore physics. I’ll debate the Electoral College, talk about the merits of socialized health - oh, I know! We can talk about baseball. Let’s talk about the Mets, how are the Mets? My Brewers are tied for second in the NL Central.”

He cranes his head up and back so he can see her and says forlornly, “They’ve lost nine in a row.”

“Hmm…”

She racks her brain trying to think of some safe, mundane topic that won’t elevate his blood pressure, remind him of work he can’t do or that they hadn’t already dissected at length in the three long years they’d spent with one another. 

“What about your family?” she settles on, pulling her feet up on the edge of the seat. “You don’t talk much about them. I feel like I’ve told you all about my family.”

“You have.”

“I have _not_.”

He tilts his head back again, this time grimacing. “Donna, I know your Uncle Milt’s middle name is Francis.”

She picks up her cereal again and concedes, “Okay, fair point, but I could go on for days about my cousins.”

“Please don’t.”

“I have _dozens_ of cousins.”

“That’s cute.” He wiggles his toes under the knotted sheets and considers her for a moment. “How many?”

“Forty-two. Sixty, if you count the second cousins.”

His head snaps back to her. “Six – _Je_ sus.”

She shrugs and takes a sip of milk from her bowl. “I think it was a predispositioning thing,” she explains, licking the sugary liquid from her lips. “I mean, my dad’s family is Irish, my mom’s Italian. If they don’t procreate like rabbits, the ghosts of ancestors past’ll be turning in their graves.”

“Ah, the Old Country.”

She reflects for a moment. “Well, there’s also the long winters.”

He smirks over his shoulder and can just catch sight of her knees. “They all born in September?”

“And August and October, but you’re on the money.”

“But what about _your_ family? It’s just you? Your parents must have the ancestors rolling.” He tries pushing himself up in the bed and can’t hold back a pained groan.

Donna’s up in a second, reaching for him to help pull him up. She has no idea why he does this without asking for help first – except that she kind of does. “Josh, wait, you’ll hurt yourself.”

He settles back into his pillows, only a little higher than he had been before. He’s panting and lines of cold sweat are streaming down either side of his face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” he pants, shifting his shoulders against the suddenly too-soft cotton and down. “I can’t see you when you’re talking.”

“Then I’ll move my chair.”

“It’s too heavy, Donna.”

She’s already putting her weight against the high back. “I can push it,” she grunts, trying to shift it from side to side.

He props himself up again, this time reaching a hand toward her. “Just…I’ll be – here. Just come sit over here. There’s plenty of room.” He shifts in the queen-sized bed and gestures to the empty side.

She hesitates for a moment, unsure of any lines they may be crossing, then remembers that she’d spent the night on his couch and had helped him back and forth to the bathroom numerous times already.

“All right. Just, stop moving, okay?” 

She grabs her cereal and slips gracefully around the foot of the bed, stopping to pick up the remote on her way. She leaves it on the nightstand and curls up at the foot of the bed, leaning back against the baseboard. His bed is unbelievably soft and she has no idea why he complains about it – someone could chain her to the headboard and threaten to leave her there forever and she couldn’t imagine ever having a problem with that. 

He tosses her an extra pillow and she gets comfortable, pulling her feet under her and wrapping the wadded up blanket around her knees. “What were you saying?”

Josh seems distracted and looks genuinely confused when he says, “Huh?”

“You asked me something before.”

She can see it in his face when he remembers. “Oh, I was just wondering why you didn’t have any brothers or sisters, what with all the predispositioning and long winters.”

She shrugs and concentrates on the soggy bits of cereal shifting in the warming milk. “They tried. Didn’t happen. My mom had two miscarriages after me and then they decided that maybe one was enough.” She looks back up at him and gives him a mischievous smile. “Then I became a teenager and they _knew_ that one was enough.”

She waits a beat and goes back to her original question, knowing on some level this was going to be a deeper conversation if she pushes things. He always managed to turn the tables back on her. “What about you? Don’t you have any cousins? Any Uncle Milt’s?”

It’s a moment before he answers and his voice has dropped a notch or two. “Nah, it was just my dad left on his side, my mom on hers. She had a much older brother who died in the Pacific, so it was just her growing up.”

She’s finished off the rest of her cereal while he talked and she leans down awkwardly from the high bed to put the bowl on the floor. “I can’t imagine not having a huge family,” she sighs, leaning back and making herself comfortable again. “It’s like…everything I did growing up revolved around barbeques and reunions and trips to an overcrowded lake house.”

He finally meets her eyes and she can see that he really is okay with this line of conversation. “It wasn’t so bad. Less of an obligation, really.”

“Howso?”

“Ah, you know – big family, lots of birthdays to remember, graduations and bar mitzvahs to attend.”

“It was nice, nice having that support growing up,” she says, her voice warm with pleasant memories. “I always wished I had a sister or a brother, though. I bet that was fun.”

“It was.”

“Were you and your sister close?”

She immediately regrets asking such a direct question and she realizes they usually avoid heavy topics like this for a reason, but his answer is almost instant.

“Thick as thieves.” 

She gives him a moment, letting him elaborate if he wishes and deciding then and there she won’t push him any further. Josh is a private person, even moreso than life in a public office would account for and she’s held tight the information he’s shared with her in the past, cherished the fact that he felt secure enough in their friendship to let her have those pieces of him.

He keeps his eyes averted, staring at the patterns on his bedspread with an almost whimsical look on his face. It’s another long minute before he speaks.

“She was uh…a few years older than me, old enough to help my mom take care of me when I was born.” He smiles fully now, like he’s remembering something, and stares back into Donna’s eyes. “Our birthdays were just a few weeks apart and when they brought me home from the hospital, my parents told her I was her birthday present, you know, trying to ease any jealousy. I think she took it literally, because from then on, we were attached at the hip. I was _her_ baby.”

Donna grins broadly, thinking of a baby Josh being toted around by a doting older sister. She was glad that he’d had something like that, something to hold on to. “I had a cousin like that. She’d drag me around like her doll. Did she force you into dress up?”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, shifting so he’s lying more on his side – the one without the angry red scars from bullets and chest tubes. “I practically _lived_ in dresses until I was five and went to kindergarten and learned that wasn’t acceptable behavior.”

She’s laughing now and stretches her legs out, her naked feet nearly touching him. “Did you get the bow and fingernail polish treatment?”

He’s into the story now, wrapped up in remembering, the tiny details flooding back – Donna can see them as they flash across his face. 

“Oh, yeah, _yeah_ \- and all her friends would come over for the tea parties in the backyard and we’d sit at this little table, drinking water from the garden hose out of these tiny plastic cups. We’d get honeysuckle from the bushes near the back fence in the summer, use them to sweeten our ‘tea’, decorate the table.”

“So you didn’t even need etiquette classes by the time you were in high school?”

“Oh, no, I was ready. Thank you, Joanie – my life skills coach.” He holds his hand up, pinky out, mimicking the motions for drinking from a teacup of fine china. 

They laugh for a moment and both fall silent, watching one another. Josh reaches for her foot, gives it a gentle squeeze and she laughs again, pulls it away, toes curling inward at the touch of his warm fingers against the soft pad of her foot.

He’s smiling when he speaks, but his voice has taken on a soft quality again, almost reverent. “She was quiet, more interested in school work, her piano. She was smart, but she _loved_ music.”

“You said one time she wanted to be a composer?”

“Conductor,” he corrects absently, his gaze drifting to the window a few feet from the bed. “She wanted to conduct symphonies. She probably could have – she had an ear, that’s what everyone always said. She had ‘the ear’ for it.”

Five minutes of silence must have passed and he has that faraway look in his eyes again – the one she’d seen more often since the shooting. She’s worried where his mind has taken him, but doesn’t know what she can do to pull him out, doesn’t think she has the right to ask him any more of the details.

Then he’s speaking again and she’s not sure he realizes she’s even in the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh shares the story of his sister's death and his life afterwards with Donna. And then goes back to being Josh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took, what? Three years to finish. I absolutely forgot about it. It was only a recent comment that I received which prompted me to go back and finish stringing the pieces I had together. I hope it doesn't feel too rushed. It's unbeta'd and I'm rusty on my _West Wing_ , but I'm so glad it's finished.

“The kitchen was already full of smoke. We were watching TV in the living room when we smelled it. It was Saturday and…my eleventh birthday was the next week; my parents were out shopping for presents…we forgot about the popcorn we’d left on the stove.” 

He swallows hard, a deep frown furrowing his brows when he says that and she knows the self-loathing she hears in his voice isn’t something she’s imagined. 

“We got up – I thought – to run. I went out the backdoor into the yard. We had a, uh…one of those log cabin things, like a playhouse. I hid inside there. I…I thought she’d be right behind me. When I turned around and she wasn’t there, I heard her scream in the kitchen.”

Donna feels her heart constrict and she wants to get up, to move to his side and hold him tight as he speaks, but she knows the second she moves, this spell he’s cast over himself will be broken. She wants to know what happened – she knows that, whatever it was, had a profound effect on the way Josh views the world, his relationships with people and how he deals with loss – but she fears the finer points of the story, hates what happened.

She hates even more that he lived it.

“I was scared; panicking, really. I couldn’t move. I wanted to go back in, to help her, but…the hall was already on fire and I couldn’t reach the window over the kitchen sink. She was screaming and then…she wasn’t.”

Donna has a few irrational fears – infinite space, the unseen depths of the ocean, crickets that hole up in the dark corners of the basement – but death, specifically dying by fire, is at the top of the ones that make sense. She physically shudders and tries to push the thought away.

“What happened next?” she asks, because it’s all she can think of and she refuses to let that memory be the last one Josh speaks aloud.

He looks at her then, blinking away the distracted gaze his eyes had taken on. “I dunno,” he says with the barest of frowns. “I honestly don’t remember. The next few months were like a blur. I know I went back to school, there were holidays, but we didn’t celebrate. There wasn’t anything to distinguish anything by. It was just…monotony.”

It’s a bleak existence, one that hurts her to envision. “I can’t imagine what it was like for your parents.”

“Aww, they were a mess.” He rolls over fully and rests on his back, arms propped up at the elbows, hands dangling mid-air over his chest as he spoke. “My dad – he worked non-stop, couldn’t let himself think about anything. My mom, she…well, you’ve met her.”

“I love your mom,” she offers warmly, remembering with fondness the time they’d spent with one another just a few weeks ago. She was due back at the end of the month and called daily, talking to Josh about how he was doing, then Donna to get a version closer to the truth.

“She loves you, too. She loved her _gin_ back then.”

She gives him an understanding smile that he can’t really see from the way he’s laying. There’s no bitterness in his voice and she’s seen him with his mother – whatever happened in the past, he adores her now, even if he considers her the world’s largest nag for not giving her grandchildren yet.

But that’s every mother, Donna supposes. At the very least, it’s her mother and Josh’s. God help them if those two women ever form a united front and throw a wrench in this relationship of theirs that simultaneously adheres to and defies all tenets of platonic friendship and workplace professionalism.

“When I finished out sixth grade I went off to boarding school for junior high and some of high school,” Josh continues, reaching for a ballpoint pen on the nightstand. 

She stretches her legs out again, shifting, wincing when her back cracks. “ _Boarding school?_ How was that? You didn’t miss being at home?”

He shrugs, concentration on the Bic. “It was great, actually. I mean, when I left, it was a fresh start. Nobody knew me; nobody knew I was the kid with the dead sister. I was just some new kid and that was fine. I eventually made some friends, joined debate, the school newspaper. It kept me busy. I don’t…I don’t think I could’ve done that if I’d stayed home.”

She watches him fiddle with the pen, rolling it between his fingers, wiggling it back and forth, hovering just above his chest. “Why not?”

The pen begins to move a little faster, a little more erratically. “It was just…like…a _pall_ had settled over our house and it was…suffocating at times.” He shakes his head, laughing to himself a little. “It was normal after a while and I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I left and remembered what things were supposed to be like.”

“But it got better?”

She knows it had – she’d known Josh less than a year when his father died and the two seemed so close. His calls home on the campaign trail were frequent and always ended with a smile.

“Yeah, after a while. I came home to finish up high school and things were better. I think…me going away helped a little, gave my parents time to just be with one another again.”

Donna waits him out, lets him gather his thoughts. Pen abandoned, he’s picking at a loose thread on the bedspread, brows furrowed in deep concentration. She knows he’s aware of her presence, hasn’t forgotten realizes she’s there – and she’s thankful that he’ll let her see this side of him, without the walls, without the plastered smile and deep dimples. 

From Josh, that’s a gift. 

When it’s obvious he’s not going to say anything else, “Josh?”

“Hmm?” 

He’s still picking at the thread and she waits until he glances up at her, looks her in the eye, before she continues. “You know what happened…it wasn’t your fault, right? That your parents didn’t blame you?”

His gaze is transfixed on her as he speaks. “At first I didn’t. I thought…maybe they were angry at me, couldn’t stand to look at me. I know sometimes I felt that way about myself, so why shouldn’t _they_?

“But then I got older and I realized them sending me away had been a necessity. They knew I needed things they couldn’t provide right then – support, encouragement, someone to tell me to keep my room clean,” he added with a rueful smile.

“You? _No_.”

“My slovenliness has been a lifelong condition – you should be proud of what you’ve been able to accomplish in the last two and a half years.”

“Really?”

“Nothing short of a miracle, Donnatella – which, by the way, given your ancestral background, suddenly makes a lot more sense,” he adds with a grunt as he adjusts himself on the bed once more. 

The moment has been broken and their old banter is back. But that’s okay. She grins and falls back into the easy conversation. “Yeah. After labor and delivery, my mom decided she got dibs on the name and my dad didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

He’s still trying to get the pillow adjusted, so she pushes herself up on her knees and leans toward the headboard so she can help him. 

“Donnatella Moss makes her debut – rough labor?” he asks, glancing up at her as she rearranges pillows and pulls a magazine out from between the mattress and headboard.

“Toss it?” she asks, dropping it on the floor next to the bed when he confirms. “Oh yeah,” she sighs, getting settled back against the footboard. “Thirty-four hours. Nine pounds, eleven ounces.”

Josh just shakes his head. “Women are amazing.”

“We _are_ the superior sex,” she responds haughtily, obviously joking…but not. 

“Don’t I know it.” He says it honestly, all soft smile and without a trace of jest or leering. 

She feels her cheeks redden, not out of embarrassment or anything like that; but a sort of humbled pride from what he’s saying without voicing the words. There’s a moment that passes between them when all is quiet once again. Not even the garbage truck rumbling below penetrates the walls of his apartment and, despite everything that’s happened, she is so thankful for these moments. 

He gives her toes another squeeze. It’s unexpected and she jerks her foot away, grinning. She pats the bedspread and pushes herself up, back in caretaker mode. “Okay. It’s 9:30. You need to eat something before you take your medication.”

Josh holds back a sigh and glances at the stack of previously read books forlornly. “What time are you going in?”

“Caroline will be here at ten,” she replies, ignoring Josh’s groans of protest at having a part-time nurse’s aid during the day. “So I’ll leave in a few,” she adds as she gets off the mattress and rearranges the bed clothing. “I need to start on some paperwork and I’m helping Toby with a thing.”

He perks up at that. “A ‘thing’?” 

“Yeah. A ‘thing.’” She says it pointedly, letting him know there will be no further details provided.

Unconvinced, he whines, “Don _na_ ,” and it’s enough to get a smile out of her, though he can’t see it. She’s bent over gathering up the dirty sheets and old pajama bottoms from the pile in the floor. 

“Jo _-osh_ ,” she counters over her shoulder as she moves into the living room. “You know the rules. Not until I get a clean bill of health in my hands will you be subjected to the mundane trivialities of – ”

“ _Mundane trivialities_? We’re running the _coun_ try,” he spouts, voice raised to make sure she can hear him as she starts up the wash.

She ignores him as she adds detergent and flips the switch on the Whirlpool. Thankfully all of his t-shirts and sheets seem to be either white or gray, which makes laundry much easier. 

When she pads back through the living room, he’s sitting up in bed, waging a serious internal battle. 

“You wanna eat in here, or go to the kitchen?” she asks, figuring that’s what he’s deciding.

“On a scale of one to ten, how slovenly would it be if I just ate my breakfast in bed?”

She crosses her arms, making a show of considering. “Well, some people prefer breakfast in bed – it’s a nice break from the norm and not all seen as slovenly.”

He squints before asking, “And other people?”

“Would consider it slovenly,” she answers, giving him a knowing nod. “And we’re past that, aren’t we?”

He sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

It takes all of fifteen minutes to get him into the kitchen and seated at the breakfast nook, where they debate the pros and cons of Donna’s cereal choices. 

“I don’t wanna go into a diabetic coma.”

She reaches for the cabinet handle, pushing up on her tippy-toes to reach the second shelf. “Well, then there’s shredded wheat.”

“The frosted ones?” There’s hope in his voice. 

She sets the box on the small wooden table. “The plain kind.”

Josh’s grimace almost makes her feel sorry for him. “You operate at the extreme ends of breakfast food, Donna. Haven’t you ever heard of something more moderate? Honey Nut Cheerios, Raisin Bran?”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” she mutters in a singsong voice as she takes out a block of shredded wheat and breaks it into pieces. “A time for frosting, a time for plain.”

Josh fiddles absently with the salt and pepper shakers, peeking outside through the gap in the sheer kitchen window curtains. There are still reporters camped out on the front walk. He looks up suddenly when she sets the dressed up bowl of cereal in front of him with a pleased smile. 

She catches his look of doubt and explains, “Natural sugar is just as good. And bananas are high in potassium. They help with muscle cramps.”

His spoon is suspended midair, halfway to his mouth, when he snarls in response. 

Donna’s smile is steady, undeterred. “Fruit is _good_ for you, Joshua.”

While he eats, she takes the time to tidy up a few things around the house – washing her cereal bowl, straightening out the sheets and comforter on his bed, rearranging the pillows on the sofa.

In the meantime, he must have finished, because he’s shuffled into the living room. Over her shoulder, she gives him a ‘look,’ but says nothing. It’s enough to prompt an exaggerated sigh before he reaches for the metal cane propped against the back of the couch. 

She allows herself a small smile of victory before gathering her purse and cardigan. “Okay,” she begins, preparing to run down the day’s schedule for him. “Caroline will be here in a few minutes, I’ve left a grocery list for her based on this week’s meal plan; the clothes are in the washer, and I’ve left a note for her to put them in the dryer; I’ll be back after lunch, but have a meeting with CJ at four – we’re going to discuss the finer points of 209.”

“Which you will most certainly – ”

“Not share with you,” she interjects, brows arched, daring him to argue. She glances at her watch. “The _Price is Right_ should be on now, and I TiVo’d last night’s _Jeopardy!_ and _Wheel of Fortune_ for you.”

“This is my life now,” he mutters.

“Not for long. Enjoy it while you can.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Hey, Donna?”

Her hand is on the door and she turns. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

He swallows, hard, taking a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “For asking. About my sister.” She gives him a touched smile, but he continues, distracting himself with the embroidery on the couch cushion. “No one…I don’t talk about it very much, but mostly it’s because no one ever asks. I guess they think it’s a sore subject and…maybe it kind of is, but…it was nice. Talking about her. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

Her eyes are shining, wet with tears that she doesn’t bother to hide. “I’m glad I did. She sounds like she was a beautiful girl.”

“She was.”

“She’d be proud of you, ya know?” she adds, opening the door as she adjusts her purse on her shoulder. “ _Her baby_ growing up to work for the President.”

“I hope so.”

She gives him her biggest smile, teeth and all. “I know so.”


End file.
